


Avengers

by von_gikkingen



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Magic, Revenge, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 20:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20215543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: “And doesn’t that just make you hate the Avengers,” she said during that first conversation, after she stepped through a portal and into his life. “Nothing against them personally, I think they’re doing a great job. They fight aliens so we don’t have to and all that. But they took the name though and they absolutely do not deserve it. They don’t know the first thing about revenge. We do.”





	1. Chapter 1

“Why didn’t you call me?” she says, sparing a moment to close the portal after her. With a hand motion that can only be described as _casual_. Because that’s how she makes _magic_ seem. Like something that couldn’t be less dramatic…

“I had it under control.”

She turns to him to make some kind of comment about how he most certainly didn’t and if she didn’t show up when she did… but she sees something in his expression, clearly. Something she does _not_ like. “Oh my god,” she says in a breathless whisper. “You were going to _shoot her_, weren’t you...?”

“I wasn’t,” he lies.

“I mean I know Disney gave me high expectations for people like you,” says the sorceress, sounding openly horrified, “but _dude_. That’s cold-blooded as fuck.”

“What is she talking about?” asks Linda then, finally rediscovering her ability to speak. Which is understandable, having had quite a stressful few minutes – first being used as a human shield, then being saved by this girl who appeared here as if by magic.

And it was going to be so hard to explain any of this to her and… And he won’t have to, apparently because as ever the sorceress decides to fill the silence. “Oh, right. She doesn’t know you’re a…” she grins, a _my bad_ kind of expression briefly appearing on her face.

"Marisa, I swear," he glares at her.

“He’s a what…?”

“A prince,” replies the girl cheerfully. “I know, right? Does _not_ act the part.”

“A _prince_,” repeats Klaue, finally shaking off the spell he was disarmed by.

“Yeah,” says the sorceress, coming closer to him showing no fear. Getting down on one knee to get on eyelevel before adding, in a completely casual tone, “Just think about that for a moment. Do the math. You’ll get there.”

He does. The way he looks at Erik just then making it pretty clear even before he says, “He can’t be…”

“Oh but he is. And he’s _not_ the vengeful orphan you need to be worried about.”

It’s worse because she looks so innocent. Even though she clearly has some unspeakable powers, even though they’ve all seen her use them, she seems like by far the most harmless of all of them. Her tunics might identify her as someone who is most certainly in a cult or a sect of some description but despite that this girl just seems incapable of violence. And aren’t looks deceiving…

Because she’s at least as dangerous as he is. At least as deadly. Between the two of them he merely knew Klaue needed to die while she fully intended to torture him to death over hours, using the most horrible spells she knew.

“Well, let’s hear it. The speech,” says the South African switching from shocked to amused almost immediately because that was just his thing these days. _Everything _was funny to him. Even the prospect of painful death, apparently. “Every vengeful orphan has one,” he adds, smirking.

“You’d know,” Marisa utters tonelessly. “Don’t want to be dealing with orphans maybe stop going around killing people’s parents.”

Klaue just laughs.

“Well, at least I’m the last one you’ll ever have to worry about. And when I’m done with you…”

“Just remember to leave the body recognizable,” he interrupts because he suddenly feels like the girl might be forgetting they had a deal. Yes, she got to have her revenge, but only as long as there still was a body for him to bring to Wakanda. “I need him,” he adds meaningfully.

“How could I ever forget?” she says, annoyed, looking at him over her shoulder. “I’ll make sure you have your offering to put on the altar of royal succession, don’t you worry.”

She gets up to her feet then, making a few complicated, too quick to follow movements with her hands and then Klaue is just… gone.

“_What_...” starts Linda.

“Just sent him to the mirror dimension. Where no one will hear him scream,” grins Marisa and, no, still doesn’t look anything in the vicinity of evil. Even though that was most certainly _not _a joke… “I might be a while. But you’ll find a way to kill time, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he replies, giving her an unamused look. Because for all her powers, for all her being a very useful ally to have, she is just impossible to deal with sometimes. And this would be one of those times. Because he knows what she’ll say next will be something along the lines of…

“Have fun with your… I’m guessing _really_ messy breakup,” she says and then she’s gone. Having spirited away rather than opened a circle of sparkling energy the way she normally does.

“So…” he says, turning to Linda.

“Oh, we’re fucking done.”

…

It was always going to be temporary. That was the deal. They kept their conversations short and to the point, mainly because she was forever stealing moments and had to return to something she called _a Sanctum_ almost immediately. And he preferred it that way. Because there were the stories his father told him and then there was whatever she was involved in and he really didn’t want to know more than he already did. She used the word _magic_ way too casually and that in itself was just… unsettling. Even though if there was a better word to describe the things she was able to do he couldn’t think of one.

It was just too much. Not something he could accept as a part of the world he lived in. But of course it made too much sense not to accept her as an ally. Not because she was clearly incredibly powerful, but because he could trust her. He knew her scars matched his, in the most horrible way imaginable.

He saw his mirror image in the girl that looked like she could never be a threat to anyone. Even before she told him her story he knew he was dealing with someone whose childhood ended in a single moment, long before she was ready. And she had to fight ever since, never forgetting the person that took everything from her. Devoted her life to making sure that one day, when he least expected it, she’ll be the one to end his miserable life. “And doesn’t that just make you hate _the Avengers_,” she said during that first conversation, after she stepped through a portal and into his life. “Nothing against them personally, I think they’re doing a great job. They fight aliens so we don’t have to and all that. But they took the name though and they absolutely do _not _deserve it. They don’t know the first thing about revenge. _We_ _do_.”

And she was right, of course. They were of a kind and they knew all there was to know about revenge. About what it could make you. What it could push you into becoming.

They were of a kind and he knew he was never going to meet anyone like her again. And he was about to see her for the last time because this was always the way it was going to end. With them going their separate ways…

“There’s not a single mark on him,” he hears himself say, sounding vaguely amazed when the wait is over and she’s back.

She and Klaue both…

“I think his heart just gave out. There is a joke I could make about him even having one but…” she just shrugs. “It was a lot of pain. A lot more than a human being can take, apparently.”

“Are you…” he starts, not sure what it is he should be asking. In the end he settles on “How do you feel?”

“Empty,” she replies, perfectly matter-of-fact, finally looking up from the corpse at her feet. “I’ve waited my entire life for this moment. Never quite thought past it. Never realized I’ll have life _after it_. And what do you know – turns out being vengeful is terrible for you. It gives you something to feel but it takes away your ability to feel anything else and… He was the reason I got into magic in the first place, you know?”

“I know,” he replies. Because she might never have said it, not in so many words, but it was still plenty obvious. Magic was merely means to an end. A way of getting the closure she needed.

And he could see what a terrible thing it was to get it. Because she sounded the same as she always did, she was just as fast with a witty reply, still, but her eyes were suddenly missing something. He couldn’t name it, whatever it was that was gone now. All he knew was that she was no longer the same girl he made a deal with.

“What will you do now?” he asks. Because he knows – he will _not _like the answer she’ll give him.

“I don’t know. Damn. Things must be so much easier when you have a throne to usurp, new world order to create… You’re right,” she says then, responding to the worried way he’s looking at her. “I’m probably hours from killing myself.”

“Yeah, you’re not hiding it well.”

“Wasn’t that the deal…? For a while there we actually were partners. We didn’t hide anything from one another. How many people beside me know your real name?” she says, smiling a little. But it seems to take effort. “What an asshole I’d be if I tried to hide this. You need to know this. It’s… it’s everything you want, it _is_, it’s unspeakably cathartic – and you do _not_ want to do this to yourself. If there’s any chance at all you can just…”

“There isn’t,” he says only. And of course she’s _not_ surprised. Because _she knows him_. Even though their interactions over the last year or so were limited solely to plotting a murder she did know him better than anyone.

And it was very much over between them now. And yet, the way she sounded, the certainty he felt that he’ll never see her again for a reason far more dramatic than he first imagined…

“Don’t say anything stupid,” she says, seeing the look on his face.

“You’re too young to…”

“Erik, what did I literally just say,” she rolls her eyes. “Is death a less of a tragedy when you get through a few more years? You did – but did you do all that much living? No. That’s for later, right? After you remade the world. And maybe then you’ll find that no, it’s too late now, you should have made use of the years you spent making yourself a weapon. We can’t go back and rewrite our stories,” she says, letting out a breath, her smile so heartbreakingly sad he finds he can’t bear to look at her just then.

And so they just stand there in silence, with a dead psychopath on the ground between them and so much unspoken…

“Go. Go on without me…” says Marisa because she would. Because when in doubt she always said something like _that_.

But it no longer sounded right because she didn’t sound like the same girl. The mischief was all gone. Humor was no longer a coping mechanism for pain because there was no pain. There was nothing. It was all gone. With a single cathartic action she lost everything she was and how could that not bother him, especially now that he was so close to getting his own revenge.

“Marisa…”

“No,” she says only. Not sharply, but still in a way there’s no arguing with. “Look, all you need to ask yourself is _do you care_? And why should you…” she adds immediately.

Because she assumed she knew the answer to that question. She _didn’t_. Neither did he. It was only as he heard her say the words that he realized…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You’re already in for one hell of an awkward family meeting, why make it worse…?”  
“Because you need to be on suicide watch,” he replies simply. And she wants to argue with that but there’s not a whole lot she can say because… yeah. She’s pretty much done with life. Her life’s mission fulfilled and all that. She really doesn’t have a single reason to continue with this. And he sure as hell wasn’t one.

“Erik... Why am I handcuffed?”

“You know exactly why. Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“How about a smart question then? Not that I’m not touched that you want me to be there to have a front row seat to you murdering your cousin, a man who did absolutely nothing to you, but... What do you think will happen when you land in Wakanda with someone like me as your plus one...?”

He says nothing because of course he doesn’t. He’s not going to rise to the bait that easily. That being said he didn’t spend all these years working towards this to let this mess with his plans. And they both knew things will go a lot differently than he planned if she was still on this plane when he landed it.

“If you were to describe me in just one word...”

“You are _not_ that aryan,” he replies exasperated.

“This is my _natural_ hair color. I look like I was written by Tolkien. You don’t want to have to explain me to your relatives. You’re already in for one hell of an awkward family meeting, why make it worse…?”

“Because you need to be on suicide watch,” he replies simply. And she wants to argue with that but there’s not a whole lot she can say because… yeah. She’s pretty much done with life. Her life’s mission fulfilled and all that. She really doesn’t have a single reason to continue with this.

He sure as hell isn’t one. No, not this evil prince.

He was means to an end, always. He kept an eye on Klaue for her and… And him caring whether she lived or died was one hell of a plot twist. One she genuinely didn’t see coming. Which might have been on her, really. Maybe she just assumed he was _exactly _like her, single-minded obsession and all. But apparently he had some leftover empathy and it just made him make a terrible mistake.

And to think that when he caught her in a headlock she assumed he was just trying to put her out of her misery. “Worst… prince… ever…”

“Can you please stop using that word?”

“Can you free my hands so I can get the hell out of here? Because I’m telling you, you’ll never be a king if you drag someone like me into this. Surest way to make thing weird.”

He says nothing. Meaningfully.

“Don’t pull that bullshit with me, Stevens. Fine, so only one of us was actually born in Africa and it wasn’t you and that’s almost a valid point to be making. But your people are isolationists for a reason, right?”

“Right. And it’s a bad reason and I’m going to change that,” he says, and he sounds just the slightest bit like a fanatic. No change there then…

“And I’m happy for you for still having something to live for. But _I don’t_. And forcing me to stay alive is fucking monstrous. Forget all the people you killed – _this_ is how you become a…”

“You’re not even old enough to legally drink I am _not_ letting you throw your life away because you’re having trouble dealing with the aftermath of your first kill. Don’t you think that makes me responsible for you? Me being the reason you were able to…” he just gestures to the corpse sprawled over the back seats. “And it won’t be that bad. You coming along. Go back…”

“Please don’t say it…” she groans, sensing what’s coming. “_Go back far enough and everyone's ancestors came from the same place. _Right.”

“It _is_ the truth.”

“Objectively, yes, but when you say it you never sound like you believe it because of course you can’t, you spent your entire life dealing with fucking white people,” she says. And she’s not surprised to hear him laugh even if he seems to be.

It’s surprisingly pleasant, to hear it. Even if his laughter sounds very tired. Even if he’s not sounding like himself at all right now.

“Look, I appreciate this, I really do. It’s aggressive, it’s overstepping your boundaries in a big way, it’s... Let’s face it, _a kidnapping_. But in a nicest possible way, though. What I’m trying to say is...”

“I am _not_ freeing your hands”

“You tolerated me because you had use for me. But you don’t need magical backup now,” she reminds. Realizing only too late that that might not have been the smartest way of convincing him he wanted to let her go.

“Don’t I...? Because last I checked this was the trickiest part and I could use...”

“A partner?” she glares at him.

“Isn’t that what we were?” he says, completely ignoring the poisonous way she said it. “What we were really good at being?”

“It’s not what we are now. We’re the next best thing to enemies.”

“You have to be alive to be my enemy. I’ll take that.”

She just looks at him, amazed. Because how the hell can one respond to something like _that_?

“You need to access your inner Mufasa. _Remember who you are_, Stevens. You needed me, I was your contingency plan in case Klaue saw through you. But you were always going to handle the rest yourself. You _don’t_ rewrite the script now. Let me go.”

“No.”

“What do you mean _no_? This is not your call to make. Seriously, _why would you care_...?”

“You _know _why. I know exactly what it’s like to be…”

“An avenger…?”

The word just slips out because of course it does. She never passed up a chance to joke about that. But that was before. When laughter meant something. When she didn’t yet know what it felt like to get everything you dreamt of for years. The satisfaction it brought. _The emptiness…_

“Risa, I… I just _do_, okay? I care. I’m not exactly happy about that if that helps but I can’t make myself stop. You’re just a kid, you can’t…”

“I’ve been legally an adult for a while now, in this or any other reality. I have every right to make this decision for myself and I’m fucking done. You trying to convince me that, no, life _is_ worth living, really, that’s just… Do I have to explain to you how funny that is? You know all there is to know about serving a cause but you have no damn clue about how to live. Which puts us in the same boat. Except I’m out of excuses not to get out. Let myself sink to the bottom of the ocean. Even with magic and hidden kingdoms life is never going to be _that_ kind of a story,” she says and she knows she sounds tired and bitter and underneath that incredibly angry at him for actually making her say the words out loud. “No one lives happily ever after. Most of us die pointlessly, never having made a difference. At least I had. At least I killed the monster. And that makes it better, you understand? That makes it alright. It _can _end like this. It’s the best ending I ever could have hoped for and I want it and you don’t get to take it away from me…”

But that is exactly what he does. He takes that ending. And all he leaves her is the rest of her life.

…

“Welcome to Wakanda,” he says and it is _such_ an asshole thing to do after the rather tense second they just had.

She can only glare at him. Because for a moment there she thought they were going to crash the plane into the jungle. Because maybe, just maybe, his father was delusional and the stories he has been told as a child were…

But as it turned out they were nothing but the truth and now she was stuck being part of this story. The last thing she wanted to be.

“Good luck trying to sell this as a good idea,” she says, doing nothing to hide her annoyance.

Ignoring that he just opens the door and… “You wanna help me with this?”

“What, after I did _all _the work,” she says. “I think getting rid of the body is the least you can do.”

She’d add some more but that’s when she catches the movement from the corner of her eye. Sees the less-than-delighted people walking towards them. And don’t they look like some very good news…

They do to her, anyway, as she finds that to die of being a stranger in Wakanda? Not really a bad way to go. As long as she does get to breathe her last.

And then she sees Erik’s expression… “You’re going to say something really starwarsy to them, aren’t you?” she says, apparently too tired for anything like real anger. “True from a certain point of view.”

“I’m just going to tell them which of us killed him.”

She rolls her eyes because that really is the best she can do. Because of course she can’t exactly stop him and it _is _the truth and... And no, she’s _not_ going to die. She can tell just by their body language. Just by something that almost seems reminiscent of respect in the faces around her. And then she’s being told to get out of the plane, they’re leaving and…

“Why is she handcuffed?” asks one of the Wakandans.

“Why indeed?” she says pointedly, looking up at Erik.

“You _don’t _want to know what happens when she’s free to use her hands.”

…

“The king wishes to see you,” one of the formidable ladies in red tells her. She just lets out a breath and lets herself be led out of the room she spent better part of the day in. Because of course they kept her waiting. She was by no means a priority.

Which was fair.

What was _not _fair was the surprise that waited for her in the throne room. “_Wow_,” she says, shaking her head. “Long live the king.”

“You know I _knew_ you’ll go with a Lion king reference,” Erik sighs, getting up from the throne. “It was only a question of which one.”

“Well I couldn’t exactly go with _hakuna matata_. This is incredibly worrying,” she shakes her head, looking down at her still immobilized hands, wishing she could just make that too-familiar stupid hand gesture and get the hell out of here. “So is the world remade yet or…?”

“Soon.”

“Could you maybe try that again. A little less ominously?” she says after he lifts her chin to make her meet his eyes. “I didn’t use to mind, you know. Back when we were both… But I ran out of horrible things to do. And I can actually see you for what you really are now.”

“What’s that?” he asks tonelessly.

“Really fucking scary, Erik. N’Jadaka,” she adds because it feels like the right thing to say. “Please don’t make me live long enough to see your new world.”

He says nothing – but that makes no difference. The quality of the silence tells her all she needs to know. She’ll live for as long as he wants her to live. Because she’s not writing her own story anymore. _He is_.

“Come with me.”

She says nothing. Not even when she realizes that all he wants is for her to come to the window. To watch with him as the sun sets on his kingdom. And the horrible thing is it does make her feel something. Because she knows what sunsets mean to him. How long he wondered what it’ll be like to know if his father was right and…

“You can do this alone,” she says, taking his hand despite the fact the handcuffs make it very awkward. “You don’t need me.”

“I know," he says.


	3. ... epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Does anyone know why I had to do that…?”  
“That’s just the thing. You didn’t. At any point you could have just come to your senses, realized that this really isn’t okay, never mind that you don’t have time to babysit me while trying to organize several bloody takeovers. This could have gone a lot differently. Neither of us had to be here to have this conversation.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you having a _please just let me die_ moment?” he hears her say. And he’s really hoping it’s just something he’s hallucinating due to the blood loss. But… no, he’s not that lucky. “I’m just gonna sit here for a bit, enjoying the irony, okay?”

“Marisa,” he says, taking a laboured breath. “Please.”

“Fuck you. I _begged you_. It didn’t change a thing. You decided I didn’t get to die. Well, guess what,” she says. And when he turns to her… no, she no longer looks innocent. Her smile is unpleasant and he knows he made her that. His refusal to let her have her rest at last was what made her this deliberately cruel.

There was no way he could hold this against her, he knew. Even as he saw her making those familiar hand motions from the corner of his eye and knew a portal will be opening around them in any moment and…

“_How_…” he hears T’Challa say.

“Oh, didn’t it occur to you he had a reason why he wouldn’t free my hands, ever, not even for a second?” Risa says only and then he can feel her putting his arm around her shoulders, forcing him to get to his feet.

“Who let you…?” he starts, his thoughts so disconnected that it seems a very important question to know the answer to.

“The princess. That you tried to murder. And didn’t that make us allies in a hurry,” she grins down at him. Because he’s stretched out on a table now and… no, that’s not good news… “And by the way – I didn’t get to die because I’m too young and have my entire life ahead of me? She’s _sixteen_ you utter sociopath. And you were going to kill her. Don’t even, I _saw you_…”

“If it helps,” he says weakly, “I do wish I just killed you in Korea.”

“You and me both.”

He’d reply but he doesn’t feel like that’s an option. He doesn’t feel like he has enough energy to keep his eyes opened for another moment.

…

“I saw my father again…” he tells her as soon as he emerges from unconsciousness. Because it’s preferable to making comment on the fact that she was here, watching over him, possibly for days while he was being healed from his injuries.

“Did he call you a fucking disappointment?” she says only, putting down the book she’s been reading before turning her attention to him. “I know I would.”

“He told me some things about you.”

“How does a dead guy know anything about me?” she frowns. “You know what… don’t answer that. This story already has far too many supernatural elements. I think I can do without…”

“He told me about you having a freakout when my heart stopped.”

“Wow. Dead people really need to learn to mind their own goddamn business,” replies Marisa, shaking her head. “Meanwhile your _living _relatives are ridiculously nice to me. Your aunt said something along the lines of _I will fucking end him_ when she saw these,” she adds, raising her hands to show him the fading bruises on her wrists.

“Does anyone know why I had to do that…?” he says only.

“That’s just the thing. You _didn’t_. At any point you could have just come to your senses, realized that this really isn’t okay, never mind that you don’t have time to babysit me while trying to organize several bloody takeovers. This could have gone a lot differently. Neither of us had to be here to have this conversation.”

“That’s another thing my father had an opinion on.”

“Of course he fucking did,” she groans. “God, if only he knew better than to fill your head with stories. You’d just be a normal kid with no manifest destiny…”

“You can’t rewrite the past,” he says, realizing only too late that he reached for her hand. Which is nowhere near as bad as the fact that she took it, never having to think about it. “We’re what our fathers made us.”

“We’re dead, N’Jadaka. We might be still breathing but that couldn’t matter less. We were dead for years. I died with my childhood, it just took a few years for the realization to catch up with me. And you…”

“I know. I should have let you die. It was cruel,” he forces himself to say. Because it’s the truth and he owes her that much. The admission of the guilt he has been feeling since he opened his eyes. “You deserved better.”

“You don’t,” she whispers, bringing his hand to her lips. “This is exactly what you deserve. These people won’t keep you alive because they want you alive. It’ll be different for you. Easier,” she says and a tear slips down her face. “You won’t spend every second aware that someone needs you. That you’re being kept breathing out of love.”

“This isn’t love.”

“Right. Keep telling yourself that,” she says, letting go of his hand.

But she doesn’t leave. She stays right where she is, picking up the old paperback copy of Hamlet he saw her reading in the past, mumbling to herself about there being no damn lions in the whole thing.

But she was a different girl then. She had fewer scars on her. And it hurt, with something close to physical pain, that he was the one responsible for the worst of them. Not Klaue, not the otherdimensional creatures she sometimes not-quite-joked about having to fight for a living – _him_. He hurt her more than anyone. He made her someone who no longer wanted to die, who will live simply out of spite. Just so she can watch him suffer his imprisonment by the people he had completely at his mercy not that long ago.

Because this is what happened when one lived long enough. Long enough to make people who mattered the most into enemies…

**Author's Note:**

> ... I mean I was always going to end up writing my own Black Panther, with blackjack and hooker... and magic... because everything is better with magic as far as I'm concerned... (honestly I have just... no regrets about this)


End file.
